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Best Poems Written by John Haupt

Below are the all-time best John Haupt poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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A Schoolboy's Cornucopia

A Schoolboy’s Cornucopia
by John T Haupt
“Whither hath fled the visionary gleam?”
--Wordsworth
"The child is father to the man"
--also Wordsworth (same poem)

Having lived on this world for 69 years,
I want to go there, where the younger me--
Walking, walking, walking home used to be, where

When at seven years old,
My schoolbell rang, where I’d
Watched, and watched
the clock.
And then I began my walk, walk, walk,
A little man alone—
Trekking, walking, trekking home.
As the sun upon my bookbag shone , I knew
In my heart and soul,
That I was not walking home alone,
Where the wind whipped my jacket tail,
And the sun on my walking back warmly shone.
Painted leaves on bright colored trees,
Drifted down in the afternoon breezes,
Where rakes soon would harvest fallen leaves.
On my schoolboy’s walk home, how well I recall even then
In my youth’s fresh blush thrall,
I knew well enough to give thanks for it all.
Past tidy houses and manicured drives, landscaped trees and shrubberies,
Black and white TV waited at home.
And supper’s ready at five, cooked by Mom,
Served at a table set for five--well prepared,
For a supper that began with a prayer.
Then TV till eight, and up the staircase
For homework, then sleep,
To prepare for the new morning soon to be there.
Wake up, take a shower, brush your teeth comb your hair.

Schooldays came, schooldays went,
Between then and now many years have been spent.
On days like today, when memories return,
Remembering past things, aging hearts seem to yearn,
to ease aging’s pains—

To dream as if here now we’re once youthful again.

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The Waltz of the Moon and the Tides

The Waltz of the Moon and the Tides

By John T Haupt

Ebb and flow,
       Wax and wane,
The moon doth grow,
                                  doth glow,
       Then shrinks again.
It pulls the tide,     
        Then lets it go—
Wax and wane,
         Ebb and flow.

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Ode To Death

ODE TO DEATH—EASTER 2016

Lo, Death, of thee I sing,
Is there being beyond thy sting?
We live our life in fear of thee,
Yet you visit us inevitably.

Do you blot us out, or set us free?
Does the source of all that makes us who we are,
Desert us when from Earth we disappear?
Minions upon minions have heard your knock before. 
Death do you close, or do you open to us the door?

I have yet the breath of life;
Shall breathe it till I die.
I wonder if I’ll breathe it still
When Death comes wandering by.

--John T Haupt.

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Saul and the Psalmist

“And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him.”  I Samuel 16:23


David on the harp
       Softly plucked the thing for Saul.
Soul-stinging, singing, taut catgut ringings,
                                                       For Saul 
soothed the night away.  
                     Soothed the night away.
“kada dadink strum kadunk dinkalingk”
                                              Did the harp sweetly say, 
         As David
Plucked melodious strains of taut-strung strings and
     For Saul
Soothed his serenaded-night, 
          Strumming his harp ‘till eastern zephyrs un-stilled the stilled air.
There morning’s pastel clouds foretold coming day.
There Saul in his tent-lair in the desert's wind-sculpted sand 
                                                    gave ear to the lyre,
To the lays on his harp that David would play.  And so
Thus David soothed Saul’s long nights,
                                                 and chased demons away.

© John T Haupt 2021

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Taking Stock

Taking Stock
        © 2021 by John T Haupt
                                                  I
Here is my experience--
My epistemology.
This morning’s sun’s heat shines with light and with moving energy,
  Through my scarlet curtain darkly, 
                           Casting shadowy forms of patterns on the wall. They
Share their shadows inward to the chambers of my dreaming mind, 
                           That discerns in them patterns and shapes and meanings 
                            With which they would be otherwise bereft, so it seems.


                                                             II
Taking stock.
              While taking stock,
                                 I keep pace with the ticking clock.

As the great world around me disappears, 
   Increasingly my world exists between my ears, where
      Outside my vision, and inside, do appear to be
      
Universes of time and space awaiting patient me, 
      In this precise and fluid momentary radiation of an instant, in the which
                          None other moment might be mine, nor space inhabited (so happily)
                                                          For all eternity.

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Songs of Saul and David: Two Poems

I. Saul and the Psalmist
By John T Haupt
“And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him.” I Samuel 16:23

David on the harp
Softly plucked the thing for Saul.
Soul-stinging, singing, taut catgut ringings,
For Saul
soothed the night away.
Soothed the night away.
“kada dadink strum kadunk dinkalingk”
Did the harp sweetly say,
As David
Plucked melodious strains of taut-strung strings and
For Saul
Soothed his serenaded-night,
Strumming his harp ‘till eastern zephyrs un-stilled the stilled air.
There morning’s pastel clouds foretold coming day.
There Saul in his tent-lair in the desert's wind-sculpted sand
gave ear to the lyre,
To the lays on his harp that David would play. And so
Thus David soothed Saul’s long nights,
and chased demons away.

II. Love Thine Enemy
By John T Haupt

1 Samuel 24:4-5
“And the men of David said unto him, Behold the day of which the Lord said unto thee, Behold, I will deliver thine enemy into thine hand, that thou mayest do to him as it shall seem good unto thee. Then David arose, and cut off the skirt of Saul's robe privily”. 5 “And it came to pass afterward, that David's heart smote him, because he had cut off Saul's skirt.”

“Right or wrong?
Wrong or right?
Shall I kill Saul tonight?”

“Thou shalt not lift up thine hand
Against the Lord’s anointed.”

David, facing his nemesis,
Bowed down before him,
Skirt shard in hand, and
Thus prostrate,
Challenged Saul’s right to rule the land.

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On Death

On Death  

by John T.Haupt 

(Inspired by my new FB friend Lewis Turco) 


While we wend us on our way to die,
 With this dying it seems our souls must vie.
 While we wake, we wonder when it will be--
 Our passing from our temporal to our eternity.

This wonderment the while doth give us pause
 To consider physics and its laws.
 As years amass on Spirit we reflect,
 And on God we trend to tender more respect.

What self-awareness can we hope to have?
 Oblivion is but a bitter salve.
 To know, be sapient--to lose this we’ll bewail,
 So we wish for something out beyond the pale.

Of all the eons past, and all ahead,
 The time we live pales to that we’re dead.
 At end of life, our hope must be revived
 That body fled, our spirits are kept alive.

Why death itself exists must give us pause,
 There must in it be some wise because,
 Ours is not to know, while life is short,
 Why our lives are destined to abort.

Nor know we what awaits us there beyond
 Our final breath, what spirit leaps the bonds
 That tied us to our corpses we have shed.
 Oh woe! It is our destiny to be dead!

It does us ill to worry and to mope,
 So let us shed our doubt and don our hope.

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Night Sounds

NIGHT SOUNDS
     By John T Haupt

Night sounds:

Crickets chorusing chirp chantingly, faint in the impious hum of climate-controlling boxes.

A dog's lonesome bark and a cat’s howl somewhere beyond the artificial light.

The clicking tap tap of me on my phone.
 
The silence where voices once sang in my head. 

When the growling boxes rest, winds push trees aside in a whisper.

But I have labors waiting in this symphonic hiatus of soft rest.
They usher me to bed.

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Eucharist Sunday, With Agua To the Roots

EUCHARIST SUNDAY, WITH AGUA TO THE ROOTS

                                                                        (Questing a Grail)

                                                                  By John T Haupt


The raindrops fall down
All around
Pounding down upon the ground.
Drippingly sounding sweetly to me,
Filling up cups of the leaves on the trees.
On this Sunday take I my ease.
May I have a cup of wine please?

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The Moon Is Full

THE MOON IS FULL
By John T. Haupt

The moon is full
And feel the pull
              Do the ebbing and flooding tides.
The coyote howls,
  And hoot the owls,
              And the dolphin on moon-streaked wave rides.